188 
MICROLEPIDOPTERA OF NEW GUINEA 
Melittia amboinensis erythrina subspec. nov. 
igv&Qivog = blood-coloured 
$ 43 mm. Head, antenna, black, vertex mixed with a few white hairs, 
face bronze, orbits below, white. Palpus black, laterally densely mixed 
with white. Thorax dark fuscous, mixed with olive and a few purple- 
whitish scales, shoulder with a small white patch, meso and metathorax 
with large fuscous-amber-yellow tufts; pectus bronze-white. Abdomen 
black with narrow yellow bands on the posterior edges of the segments, 
dilated laterally, anal tuft mixed with pale yellow, venter whitish. Legs 
black, mixed with white; anterior femur with a white basal half, tibia 
fringed with white below, tarsus with narrow dorsal, and lateral, yellowish 
streaks; median femur white above and below, tibia along the anterior 
half laterally, mixed with whitish-green-metallic scales, a tuft of white 
hairs beyond the middle below, edged above with pale blue scales, tarsus 
faintly ringed with white ; posterior femur white above and below, a broad 
snow-white pencil of hairs covering its basal half; posterior tibia laterally 
(externally) with two transverse fasciae of a white irroration, with pale 
green gloss, before and beyond the middle, respectively, above internally 
mixed with pale fulvous-pink, this colour extending over the dorsum of 
the tibia posteriorly and becoming dark fulvous, inwardly in the middle 
also mixed with very long white hairs, and towards the base, with sordid 
olive-ochreous ones; posterior tarsus black, with a moderate yellowish- 
white tuft at its base laterally. Fore wing black, hyaline areas hardly 
tinged yellowish, extended, postcellular area enclosing almost the half of 
the furcation of the veins 7 and 8; a few white scales on the apical band; 
a small elongate yellow spot on the middle of the base of the wing. Cilia 
dark fuscous. Hind wing white-hyaline, with the margin, and the veins 
black; dorsal lobe black, its marginal half and the basal tuft of hairs, 
yellow. Cilia dark fuscous. 
Araucaria Camp, 800 m, March 28, 1939. One specimen. Sufficiently 
distinct by the deep pink-fulvous hairing of the hind legs. 
Melittia nepcha Butler, 1876 
Melittia nepclia Butler, 1876, Trans. Zool. See. Lond., vol. 9, p. 635. Descr. Lop. 
Atkins., p. 10, 1879. Cotes & Swtnhoe, Catal. Moths India, vol. 2, p. 42, 1887. 
Lk Cekf in Obf.rtiiur, Etud. Lop. comp., vol. 14, pp. 204, 231, 1917. Novit. Zool., 
vol. 26, p. 87, 1919. Dalla Torre & Strand, Lepid. Catal., part 31, p. 146, 1925. 
Gaede in Seitz, Cross-Schmett., Indo-Austr., vol. 10, p. 789, 1933. 
Melittia nepeha, Hampson, Fauna Brit. Ind., Moths, vol. 1, p. 205, 1892. (lapsus) 
Distribution: Sikkim, Nilgiris, Rangoon, Pegu, Tenasserim, Perak. 
